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UNIVERSITY 


Vol.  XII 


OF     ILLINOIS 

ISSUED  WEEKLY 
JANUARY  11,  1915 


BULLETIN 


No.  19 


[Entered  as  second-class  matter  December  11,  1912,  at  the  post  office  at  Urbana,  Illinois, 
under  the  Act  of  August  24,  1912.] 


WHAT  IS  INVOLVED  IN  VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION 


AN  ADDRESS 

BY 

E.  DAVENPORT 

K\ 

Dean  of  the  College  of  Agriculture  and  Director  of 

the  Agricultural  Experiment  Station 

University  of  Illinois 


ITBLiSHEL)  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


FOREWOED 

In  order  that  his  point  of  view  may  be  clearly  known  and  his  in- 
tense belief  in  vocational  education  of  the  most  practical  kind  estab- 
lished in  advance,  the  author  craves  a  word  of  introduction  to  say 
that  he  writes  from  the  standpoint  of  a  farmer  and  a  teacher  inter- 
ested above  all  else  in  an  improved  agriculture  and  an  enriched 
country  life. 

There  is  no  kind  of  farm  work  in  forest,  field,  or  ditch  that  he 
has  not  done ;  not  once  but  many  times,  day  after  day,  and  year 
after  year,  and  with  all  kinds  of  people ;  not  only  as  a  boy  but  for 
ten  years  as  a  man  after  graduation  from  college.  He  therefore  feels 
that  he  knows  the  point  of  view  of  the  man  who  works  with  his  hands, 
and  something  of  his  need  for  training,  both  mentally  and  manually. 

It  is  now  forty  years  since  his  experience  in  vocational  education 
began  in  the  oldest  agricultural  college  in  America — an  institution 
having  no  connection  with  any  other  form  of  education.  After  ten 
years  of  practical  farming,  he  was  called  to  teach  in  his  Alma  Mater, 
and  for  the  last  twenty  years  he  has  been  at  the  head  of  an  agricul- 
tural college  and  experiment  station  organized  as  integral  parts  of 
one  of  the  larger  state  universities. 

The  following  treatment  of  the  general  subject  of  vocational  edu- 
cation is  therefore  the  result  of  convictions  that  have  formed  them- 
selves during  these  many  years  of  experience  with  both  extremes  of 
the  problem  as  applied  to  agriculture,  with  such  observations  in  col- 
lateral fields  as  occasion  has  made  possible. 


WHAT  IS  INVOLVED  IN  VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION1 

Now  that  we  have  outgrown  the  apprentice  system,  the  question 
of  vocational  preparation  is  fairly  up.  Shall  it  be  ignored,  or  shall 
it  be  undertaken  by  the  schools,  which,  by  custom  and  by  law,  have 
possession  of  the  children?  Upon  this  question  different  types  of 
people  have  taken  three  diverse  positions : 

1.  An  old-time  extreme  which  held  that  the  sole  purpose 
of  the  public  schools  was  to  give  a  general  education  without 
regard  to  vocation,  and  that  ^specialized  instruction  should 
not  be  undertaken  below  the  college,  a  view  that  left  the 
masses  with  no  training  for  occupation  and  therefore  with 
less  ability  and  often  with  less  inclination  for  lives  of  use- 
fulness than  characterized  the  preceding  generations  before 
the  introduction  of  compulsory  universal  education.     This 
extreme  view  of  the  function  of  education  is  fortunately  past 
and  for  present  purposes  may  be  disregarded. 

2.  An  opposite  extreme,   also   of  long  standing,   chiefly 
interested  in  "business,"  holding  that  the  vast  majority  of 
the  people,  necessarily  destined  for  common  toil,  are  certain 
to  be  made  unhappy  by  too  much  education,  and  that  the 
best  way  of  insuring  that  the  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water  will  be  efficient  and  at  the  same  time  "contented 
with  their  lot"  is  to  establish  for  the  masses  a  variety  of 
distinctly  technical  schools  whose  aim  shall  be,  above  all  other 
considerations,  to  turn  out  efficient  workmen.  Unfortunately, 
this  extreme  is  not  dead,  like  its  contemporary,  but  seems 
endowed  with  perennial  life. 

3.  A  modern  middle  ground  taken  by  the  mass  of  educa- 
tors, farmers,  bankers,  labor  unions,  and  others  interested 
mainly  in  people  and  in  ultimate  progress  rather  than  in 
immediate  results.     The  advocates  of  this  position  hold  that 
vocational  and  non-vocational  education  are  equally  impor- 
tant, whether  we  regard  the  interests  of  the  individual,  of  the 
occupation,,  or  of  the  public,  and  that  in  order  to  secure  the 
highest  development  of  individuals,  of  vocations,  and  of  so- 
ciety, it  is  necessary  that  every  student  be  educated  both 
vocationally  and  non-vocationally ;  that  the  technical  and  the 
non-technical  instruction  should  be  carried  on  side  by  side, 
particularly  in  the  secondary  school;    and  that  children  of 
all  classes  should  be  held  together  and  otherwise  associated 
as  intimately  as  possible  during  the  period  of  preparation 

'Delivered  by  E.  Davenport  before  the  Business  Section  of  the  State  Teachers ' 
Association,  Springfield,  Illinois,  December  30,  1914. 


340083 


for  different  occupations  and  more  or  less  conflicting  careers. 
Because  of  all  these  considerations  it  is  held  that  the  prac- 
tical procedure  is  to  expand  the  public  schools  by  the  intro- 
duction of  vocational  courses,  thereby  insuring  the  form  of 
education  best  fitted  for  a  self-governing  community  under- 
going rapid  development. 

PLAN  PROPOSED  BY  ILLINOIS  EDUCATIONAL  COMMISSION 

In  general  line  with  this  modern  spirit  of  education  for  a  democ- 
racy, the  Illinois  Educational  Commission  some  four  years  ago  re- 
ported and  recommended  a  definite  plan  of  procedure  for  the  public 
secondary  schools  of  the  state.  As  I  know  no  better  statement  of  the 
so-called  unit  system,  I  quote  from  the  report1  certain  fundamental 
propositions  as  follows: 

"I.  That  the  high  school  completes  the  formal  education  for  most 
of  its  students,  and  this  fact  rather  than  the  preparation  for  college 
should  dominate  its  policy. 

"II.  That  the  high  school  curriculum  should,  therefore,  distinctly 
recognize  the  vocational  needs  of  the  pupil,  defining  vocation  broadly 
enough  to  cover  all  the  useful  activities,  ranging  from  industry  for 
the  masses  to  literature,  business  and  art  for  the  few. 

"III.  That  at  least  one-fourth  of  the  student's  time  in  high  school 
should  be  devoted  to  this  vocational  work,  and  three-fourths  to  non- 
vocational,  upon  the  ground  that  the  student,  in  order  to  make  a 
useful  member  of  society,  should,  for  a  portion  of  his  time  each  day 
after  reaching  the  high  school  age,  become  possessed  of  a  deep  sense 
of  vocational  consciousness  demanding  special  training  looking  to  his 
own  activities,  but  that  at  the  same  time,  in  order  to  be  most  effective 
and  rational,  he  should  also  devote  the  major  portion  of  his  time  to 
what  other  men  have  thought  and  said  and  done,  or  are  preparing 
to  do,  and  to  the  facts  of  nature. 

"IV.  That  the  instruction  in  vocational  courses  of  high  schools 
should  be  as  useful  for  practical  purposes  as  is  that  in  the  same  sub- 
jects in  schools  devoted  exclusively  to  technical  training.  In  no  other 
way  can  the  higher  phases  of  public  education  hold  their  own  against 
the  competition  of  the  trade  school  and  prevent  its  supplanting  to 
an  undue  extent  a  broader  system  for  the  education  of  the  young. 

1 '  V.  That  therefore  the  typical  high  school  should  introduce  into 
its  curriculum  at  the  present  time  at  least  six  vocational  courses  cor- 
responding to  the  six  broad  avenues  leading  into  the  chief  activities 
of  civilized  man,  namely : 

"1.  A  course  leading  to  the  speaking  and  writing  profes- 
sions with  language,  literature  and  history  as  its  main  sub- 
jects. 

Report  of  the  Illinois  Educational  Commission  to  the  General  Assembly  of 
1911,  pp.  49-51. 


"2.  A  course  leading  to  the  scientific  professions,  espe- 
cially medicine  and  surgery,  and  devoting  its  chief  attentiorf 
to  biology,  physics  and  chemistry,  studies  dealing  with  life 
and  the  conditions  of  life. 

"3.  A  course  leading  to  the  profession  of  farming  with 
special  reference  to  the  domesticated  animals  and  plants, 
and  to  the  soil  as  the  sustainer  of  life,  supported  by  the  physi- 
cal sciences  and  by  the  principles  of  accounting. 

"4.  A  course  preparing  for  useful  and  artistic  construc- 
tion in  the  building  trades  and  in  most  lines  of  manufacture. 
Here,  manual  training,  mathematics,  physics  and  art  should 
hold  the  leading  place. 

"5.  A  course  leading  to  the  callings  of  the  business  worlcj, 
with  commercial  geography,  economics,  industrial  history, 
commercial  arithmetic,  commercial  law,  book-keeping,  stenog- 
raphy and  typewriting  as  iis  most  "prominent  features. 

"6.  A  course  dealing  with  the  application  of  science  and 
of  art  to  the  affairs  of  the  well-ordered  home.  Here  sewing, 
cooking,  food  values,  marketing,  serving,  nursing,  sanitation, 
textiles,  home  decoration  and  the  laws  of  physical,  moral  and 
mental  development  in  childhood  are  the  special  studies. 

"VI.  That  the  nature  study  work  of  the  grades  should  lead  up 
naturally  to  the  high  school,  and  to  this  end  should  be  so  conducted 
as  to  follow  the  evolution  of  the  child  and  develop  gradually  from 
the  undifferentiated  study  of  the  natural  environment  in  the  lower 
grades  to  a  differentiation  in  the  upper  so  clear  as  to  establish  in  the 
mind  of  the  pupil  of  the  grammar  grades  a  conception  of  the  field 
of  the  various  natural  sciences  and  a  well-developed  vocational  con- 
sciousness, the  latter  having  its  inception  with  the  appearance  of  the 
economic  instinct  in  the  upper  grades.  By  this  means  the  child  is 
prepared  for  an  intelligent  choice  of  his  vocational  course,  and  in  this 
way  can  be  checked,  to  some  extent  at  least,  the  outrush  from  the 
schools  following  the  lure  of  vocation,  and  conscious  only  of  the  de- 
sire to  do  practical  things. 

"VII.  That  schools  be  advised  to  ascertain  whether  and  to  what 
extent  pupils  are  engaged  in  duties  outside  of  school,  and  when  it 
shall  appear  that  such  duties  are  definite  and  regular,  then  their 
value  should  be  assessed  and  proper  credit  given  the  student  on  the 
progress  of  his  course,  particularly  for  work  done  in  direct  line  with 
the  vocational  courses  of  the  high  school,  but  no  credit  should  be 
given  for  irregular  and  indefinite  outside  activities  involving  little  or 
no  responsibility,  and  developing  neither  knowledge,  skill  nor  stability 
of  purpose. 

"Vocational  courses  should  be  organized  and  taught  strictly  from 
the  vocational  point  of  view,  with  the  distinct  purpose  of  giving  the 
student  the  disposition  and  something  of  the  ability  to  take  at  once 


6 

a  definite  place  in  organized  society,  and  to  become  a  useful  member 
of  his  community. 

"To  this  end  the  student,  upon  entering  high  school,  should  select 
one  of  these  courses  upon  the  assumption  that  the  preliminary  work 
in  the  grades  has  been  successful  in  helping  him  to  choose,  broadly 
at  least,  the  general  nature  of  his  vocation. 

"The  choice  once  made  should  be  definite  and  final,  unless  the 
student  with  his  developing  faculties  discovers  that  he  has  made  a 
mistake,  in  which  case  he  should  be  permitted  to  change  his  election 
with  whatever  loss  of  credit  is  necessarily  involved,  all  upon  the 
principle  that  one  of  the  chief  functions  of  the  school  is  to  enable 
the  individual  to  find  himself  and  to  identify  and  come  into  intimate 
relations  with  his  life  work  before  he  tries  his  forces  in  competition 
with  the  business  world.  The  evidence  at  hand  all  points  to  the  be- 
lief that  this  course  of  procedure  will  sensibly  reduce  the  stream  of 
incompetents  going  from  our  schools  into  the  ranks  of  unskilled  labor 
and  largely  on  into  the  stage  of  discontent  and  the  army  of  the  un- 
employed. 

"The  student,  having  selected  his  vocational  course,  should  devote 
to  it  one-fourth  of  his  time  and  energy ;  that  is  to  say,  of  the  four  high 
school  studies,  one  should  be  vocational.  The  rest  of  the  time  should 
be  as  faithfully  devoted  to  language,  literature,  science,  history,  eco- 
nomics, art,  mathematics,  and  such  other  non- vocational  subjects  as 
are  needed  for  the  adequate  mastery  of  the  mother  tongue,  for  in- 
telligent citizenship,  for  a  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  the  due  ap- 
preciation of  life.  It  will  be  noted  in  this  connection  that  what  is 
vocational  for  one  group  of  students  becomes  non-vocational  for  an- 
other with  a  different  purpose,  and  one  is  as  important  as  the  other 
in  the  making  of  a  citizen. 

"It  is  unnecessary  to  remark  that  the  vocational  courses  should 
be  taught  by  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  vocation  as  well  as  the  sub- 
ject-matter and  the  method  of  instruction;  in  other  words,  by  a 
special  teacher.  That  the  teacher  should  know  his  subject  is  a  funda- 
mental principle,  but  it  is  even  more  vital  in  vocational  than  it  is  in 
non- vocational  instruction. ' ' 

That  this  report  of  the  Commission  not  only  announced  an  educa- 
tional policy  but  reflected  the  public  mind  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
without  special  legislation  or  outside  support  the  plan  is  being  rapidly 
carried  out.  Home  economics  is  now  taught  in  137  of  the  high 
schools  of  the  state  and  agriculture  in  more  than  50,  while  business 
courses  are  developing  freely  and  manual  training  is  coming  to  be 
frankly  understood  as  a  preparation  for  craftsmanship  as  well  as  a 
special  form  of  training  for  the  hand. 

Besides  what  is  being  done  in  the  secondary  schools,  the  Cook- 
county  plan  shows  how  rapidly  and  how  sanely  these  same  subjects 


are  being  developed  in  the  grades  and  the  country  schools, — all  of 
which  is  strongly  supported  by  the  newly  devised  plans  for  junior 
extension  work  in  agriculture  and  home  economics  by  the  federal  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  in  cooperation  with  the  Agricultural  College 
of  the  State  University. 

Moreover,  short  courses  in  agriculture  and  home  economics  are 
coming  in  as  a  distinctive  feature  of  the  community  school,  and  their 
numbers  are  increasing  and  their  duration  lengthening  as  rapidly  as 
instructors  can  be  found,  while  other  special  needs  are  being  met 
wherever  and  whenever  the  public  is  willing  to  pay  for  therq,. 

There  remains  only  to  develop  these  technical  courses  into  greater 
usefulness,  to  establish  adequate  instruction  in  the  manufacturing  in- 
dustries and  in  business,  to  set  thg  science  courses  in  order  for  tech- 
nical needs,  and  to  adapt  still  better  our  literary  work  to  non-tech- 
nical purposes, — all  of  which  is  going  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds 
under  an  educational  impulse  as  new  as  it  is  unique  and  rational, 
showing  clearly  that  the  public  school  of  the  future  is  not  to  be  judged 
by  the  products  of  the  schools  of  the  last  generation. 

When  we  remember  the  history  of  education  and  of  industry,  the 
marvel  is  that  the  public  schools  with  all  their  shortcomings  have  done 
so  well  in  an  educational  effort  positively  new  in  the  world's  history. 
The  amazing  wonder  is  that  they  have  caught  the  vision  so  soon  and 
that  they  have  made  so  good  a  beginning,  not  only  in  vocational  train- 
ing, but  in  the  development  of  a  comprehensive  system  of  education 
specific  enough  to  meet  the  needs  of  efficiency,  and  flexible  enough  for 
easy  adaptation  to  the  rapidly  changing  conditions  of  an  ever  ad- 
vancing people. 

By  all  accounts  the  people  generally  are  beginning  to  realize  what 
universal  education  in  a  democracy  really  means ;  to  appreciate  what 
is  actually  involved  in  educating  all  the  children  of  all  the  people  for 
all  the  duties  of  a  highly  developed  and  self -directing  civilization; 
and  to  understand  that  there  is  no  short  cut  to  success  in  our  prob- 
lem. This  is  a  mighty  advance  over  anything  that  has  gone  before. 

A  NEW  SYSTEM  PROPOSED 

In  the  midst  of  this  development  there  comes  from  the  Commer- 
cial Club  of  our  chief  industrial  and  trade  center  a  definite  proposi- 
tion to  establish  a  separate  system  of  vocational  schools,  supported 
by  state  and  local  taxation  and  managed  by  boards  of  control  having 
but  nominal  connection  with  other  public-school  activities.  This  is 
the  so-called  dual  system  based  upon  the  theory  that  vocational  edu- 
cation, to  be  effective,  must  be  administered  in  special  schools  and 
by  special  teachers.  While  it  opposes  no  development  which  the  exist- 
ing public  schools  may  attain,  the  writer  cannot  look  upon  the  plan 
as  other  than  a  revival  of  the  policy  to  provide  for  the  masses  a 


8 

special  kind  of  training  with  limited  cultural  opportunities,  the  prod- 
uct of  which  would  inevitably,  if  not  designedly,  be  a  superior  kind 
of  apprentice. 

POINTS  COVERED  BY  THE  PROPOSED  LAW  FOR  ESTABLISHING  A  SYSTEM 
OF  VOCATIONAL  SCHOOLS  FOR  ILLINOIS 

The  provisions  of  the  latest  accessible  draft1  of  the  Cooley  bill 
may  be  outlined  substantially  as  follows : 

1.  A  state  Commission  of  Vocational  Education  shall  be  created 
having  no  connection  with  other  educational  activities  of  the  state 
except  that  the  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction  shall  be 
an  ex-officio  member. 

2.  In  all  cities  or  villages  of  the  state  desirous  of  enjoying  the 
benefits  of  the  act,  there  shall  be  a  local  Board  of  Vocational  Edu- 
cation having  no  connection  with  the  educational  system  of  the  city 
or  village  except  that  the  Superintendent  of  Schools  of  such  city  or 
village  shall  be  an  ex-officio  member. 

3.  In  rural  districts  there  shall  be  a  township  Board  of  Vocational 
Education  having  no  connection  with  any  other  educational  system 
except  that  the  County  Superintendent  of  Schools  shall  be  an  ex- 
officio  member. 

4.  The  local  Board  of  Vocational  Education,  whether  in  the  city, 
village,  or  township,  shall  have  power  to  establish  any  one  or  all  of 
the  following  vocational  schools,  either  separate  or  in  any  desired 
combination : 

"a.  Vocational  continuation  day  schools  for  youth  of  both  sexes 
between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen  years  who  are  employed 
or  are  not  pupils  in  other  schools, — at  which  vocational  schools 
such  instruction  shall  be  given  as  will  render  more  efficient  the 
practical  work  of  the  factory,  shop,  store,  office  or  farm.  Attend- 
ance at  such  schools  shall  be  compulsory  upon  all  such  youth  for 
240  hours  in  each  year. 

"b.  Vocational  evening  schools  for  pupils  over  eighteen  years 
of  age  who  are  employed,  at  which  schools  such  instruction  shall 
be  given  as  will  supplement  and  rationalize  the  practical  experi- 
ences of  the  factory,  shop,  store,  office  or  farm.  Attendance  at 
such  schools  shall  be  voluntary. 

"c.  Vocational  continuation  day  schools  for  apprentices,  clerks 
and  servants,  attendance  at  which  shall  be  compulsory  upon  all 
youth  who  are  bound  as  apprentices,  clerks  or  servants  under  the 

1Being  unable  to  secure  a  recent  draft  of  the  new  proposal,  I  have  abstracted 
to  the  best  of  my  ability  from  the  printed  plan  of  two  years  ago.  This  abstract 
has  been  submitted  to  the  promoters  for  approval,  or  for  modification  until  it 
should  fairly  represent  the  new  proposition.  I  am  advised  that  it  does  not  com- 
pletely represent  their  latest  plans,  yet  as  my  request  for  alteration  was  not 
complied  with,  I  have  no  recourse  except  to  use  the  latest  material  which  has 
been  made  public, — the  Cooley  bill  of  1912-13. 


9 

statute  in  such  case  made  and  provided.  At  these  schools  instruc- 
tion shall  be  given  with  a  view  to  teaching  the  entire  trade  or 
vocation  at  which  such  apprentices,  clerks,  or  servants  are  em- 
ployed, for  not  less  than  six  hours  per  week,  during  the  entire 
term  of  such  apprenticeship. 

"d.  Part-time  schools  for  youth  between  fourteen  and  eighteen 
years,  the  pupils  of  which  will  spend  alternate  weeks  in  shop, 
factory,  store  or  office  or  other  place  of  employment  and  at  the 
schools  at  which  instruction  shall  be  given  with  a  view  to  sup- 
plementing and  rendering  effective  the  work  of  the  pupils  in  their 
respective  employments.  Teachers  at  these  schools  will  be  re- 
quired to  supplement  the  school  work  by  giving  practical  aid  and 
advice  to  the  pupils  and  their  employers  at  the  respective  places 
of  employment  of  such  pupils. 

"e.  Vocational  day  schools  ior  the  industrial,  commercial  or 
agricultural  instruction  and  for  the  instruction  in  domestic  service 
of  youth  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  years.  At  these 
schools  instruction  shall  be  given  with  a  view  to  the  vocational 
preparation  of  the  youth  of  both  sexes,  who  expect  to  commence 
industrial,  commercial,  agricultural  or  domestic  service  at  the  age 
of  sixteen  years,  and  shall  include  instruction  to  girls  in  women's 
trades,  commerce  and  the  household  arts,  and  to  boys  in  agri- 
cultural, commercial,  industrial  and  mechanical  subjects.  Youth 
employed  upon  farms  shall  not  be  required  to  attend  such  schools, 
except  during  the  months  of  November,  December,  January,  Feb- 
ruary and  March,  but  the  technical  or  special  teachers  of  subjects 
pertaining  to  agriculture  may  be  employed  for  ten  months  in  each 
year,  of  which  period,  five  4honths  service  shall  be  in  the  schools 
and  five  months  service  on  the  farms  in  the  municipality  support- 
ing the  school,  giving  lectures  and  demonstrations  and  promoting 
such  other  educational  measures  as  the  board  shall  determine  to 
be  for  the  benefit  of  the  agricultural  interests  of  the  community. 

"f.  Schools  which  shall  provide  in  one  institution  for  the  in- 
struction required  in  any  two  or  more  of  the  above  mentioned  types 
of  schools." 

5.  The  Board  of  Vocational  Education  shall  have  power  to  buy 
or  lease  sites  for  buildings  and  grounds  with  the  concurrence  of  the 
city  council  or  commissioners  in  the  case  of  cities  and  villages,  and 
without  concurrence  in  the  case  of  townships. 

6.  In  all  cases  the  Board  shall  have  power  to  erect,  purchase,  or 
rent  buildings  or  rooms,  employ  teachers,  provide  equipment,  expel 
pupils,  and  perform  any  act  necessary  to  the  successful  conduct  of 
the  schools  it  has  established. 

7.  In  the  case  of  city  or  village  organizations,  the  Board  of  Voca- 
tional Education  shall  certify  to  the  city  government  the  amount  of 
money  necessary  for  the  conduct  of  the  vocational  schools  it  has  es- 
tablished, after  which  the  city  council  or  the  commissioners  shall  have 
power  to  levy  a  tax  not  to  exceed  an  upper  limit  (unspecified  in  the 


10 

bill),  which  tax  shall  be  in  addition  to  all  other  taxes  which  such 
city  or  village  is  now  or  may  be  hereafter  authorized  to  levy. 

8.  In  the  case  of  township  organization,  the  Board  of  Vocational 
Education  shall  have  power  itself  to  levy  taxes  not  to  exceed  a  cer- 
tain upper  limit  (unspecified  in  the  bill),  the  proceeds  also  to  con- 
stitute a  "Vocational  Educational  Fund"  in  addition  to  all  other 
educational  taxes. 

9.  Any  city,  village,  or  township  establishing  a  system  of  voca- 
tional schools  under  the  proposed  act  shall  be  entitled  to  receive  from 
the  state  in  further  "aid  of  such  school  or  schools  an  amount  equal 
to  the  annual  sum  raised  by  taxation  by  such  city,  village,  or  township 
for  the  support  of  such  school  or  schools." 

Whatever  is  true  as  to  details  and  revisions,  the  above  outline  ex- 
hibits the  new  system  as  presented  two  years  ago  for  adoption  in 
this  state,  and  it  may  therefore  be  fairly  accepted  as  representing  the 
essentials  of  the  plan  as  it  lies  in  the  minds  of  its  promoters.  It  is 
the  clear  intent  of  the  act  to  establish  a  publicly  supported,  self-gov- 
erning, and  independent  system  of  vocational  education  having  no 
connection  with  other  forms  of  education  except  through  the  ex-officio 
membership  of  school  superintendents,  state,  city,  or  county.  It  is  to 
be  noted,  too,  that  the  obligation  of  the  state  is  limited  only  by  the 
rate  of  taxation  permitted  to  the  community  and  the  number  of  com- 
munities that  choose  to  avail  themselves  of  the  provisions  of  the  act. 

The  proposed  plan  to  establish  a  new  and  separate  system  of  voca- 
tional schools  is  a  departure,  sprung  upon  us  in  the  very  midst  of  an 
exceedingly  rapid  development  of  vocational  education  in  the  public 
schools,  whose  chief  need  now  is  money  and  qualified  teachers.  My 
contention  is  that  the  good  work  already  accomplished  is  not  to  be 
abandoned  or  nullified  and  all  that  has  been  gained  is  not  to  be  sacri- 
ficed by  a  confusion  of  plans  and  procedures, — certainly  not  without 
the  most  searching  inquiry  into  the  consequences  of  setting  up  at 
public  expense,  and  over  against  the  public-school  system,  a  new  and 
separate  system  of  any  kind,  even  so  good  a  thing  as  vocational  schools. 
We  are  not  to  adopt  an  imported  system  because  it  is  German  without 
inquiring  what  it  is  doing  to  Germany;  nor  are  we  to  adopt  it  be- 
cause it  promises  a  short  cut  to  industrial  efficiency,  without  inquiring 
what  it  will  do  to  us. 

As  every  proposition  is  to  be  judged  by  what  would  happen  were 
it  put  into  operation,  I  invite  the  sober  consideration  of  the  following 
five  specific  questions,  viewed  from  the  American  standpoint: 

I.  How  would  a  separate  system  of  vocational  schools  affect  the 
children  ? 

II.  How  would  a  separate  system  of  vocational  schools  affect  the 
existing  public  schools? 

III.  How  would  a  separate  system  of  vocational  education  affect 
society? 


11 

IV.  What  would  be  the  financial  waste  of  a  multiple  system  of 
schools  ? 

V.  What  has  been  the  experience  of  the  colleges  in  dealing  with 
the  same  kind  of  problem? 

I.  How  WOULD  A  SEPARATE  SYSTEM  OF  VOCATIONAL  SCHOOLS 

AFFECT  THE  CHILDREN? 

Under  the  unit  system  each  vocational  group  of  children  is  segre- 
gated only  for  technical  courses.  In  all  non-vocational  studies,  except 
for  certain  modifications,  they  receive  the  same  quality  of  instruction 
as  other  groups.  In  this  way  all  students  enjoy  identical  privileges 
in  non-technical  instruction  and  a.re  thrown  for  most  of  the  time  into 
intimate  association  and  personal  contact  with  individuals  of  all  other 
groups,  a  condition  which  not  only  vastly  increases  their  information 
by  the  indirect  processes  of  filtration,  but  extends  their  acquaintance 
and  broadens  their  sympathies  each  with  the  other,  an  important  con- 
sideration when  it  is  remembered  that  their  after-lives  will  be  widely 
separated. 

The  dual  system,  on  the  other  hand,  would  necessitate  complete 
segregation,  which  would  deprive  the  student  of  this  advantage,  as 
it  would  also  of  the  highest  grade  of  instruction  in  non-technical  or 
humanizing  subjects,  for  in  actual  practice  it  is  hardly  possible  for 
the  vocational  school  to  provide  as  good  a  grade  of  instruction  or  as 
ample  library  facilities  in  literature,  for  example,  as  could  be  afforded 
by  the  cosmopolitan  school.  This  is  not  only  because  of  the  additional 
expense,  but  also  because  the  best  teachers  avoid  schools  of  narrow 
purpose  and  restricted  associations.  In  every  way  the  individual 
student  in  the  separated  school  is  bound  to  suffer  loss,  both  in  his 
non-technical  education  and  in  his  knowledge  of  and  sympathy  with 
other  occupations  and  the  people  who  follow  them,  but  with  whom 
he  must  afterward  live  and  do  business  with  comfort  if  society  is  to 
be  at  peace  with  itself. 

II.  How  WOULD  A  SEPARATE  SYSTEM  OF  VOCATIONAL  SCHOOLS 

AFFECT  THE  EXISTING  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS? 

There  are  but  two  possible  objects  in  segregating  students  along 
vocational  lines:  one  is  to  secure  competent  instruction;  the  other 
is  to  create  and  maintain  an  "atmosphere"  favorable  to  each  par- 
ticular form  of  vocational  activity.  To  establish  a  system  of  separate 
vocational  schools,  therefore,  means  something  more  than  the  division 
of  instruction  into  two  classes, — the  academic  and  the  vocational.  It 
means  the  development  of  a  great  variety  of  vocational  schools,  each 
designed  and  operated  for  a  special  purpose. 

The  report  of  the  Educational  Commission  outlined  six  vocational 
groups  into  which  the  normal  student  body  of  the  public  high  school 


12 

could  sort  itself,  and  in  general  these  groups  would  care  for  most 
situations  without  segregated  schools.  Now,  if  these  six  groups  cannot 
profitably  live  together,  upon  the  same  campus,  under  the  same  body 
of  teachers,  and  under  the  same  board  of  control,  then  to  be  effective 
they  must  break  up  into  at  least  six  vocational  schools,  one  for  each, 
in  order  to  create  and  preserve  the  special  ''atmosphere"  deemed  so 
necessary  to  success.  There  is  nothing  more  in  common  between  the 
five  so-called  occupational  groups, — farming,  manufacturing,  science, 
business,  home  economics, — than  there  is  between  any  one  of  them 
and  the  sixth,  or  the  literary  group ;  and  if  they  cannot  all  get  on 
together  in  the  same  school,  then  the  five  will  break  apart  after  seces- 
sion from  the  sixth.  By  all  accounts,  a  vocational-school  system  means 
one  school  for  each  vocation  in  every  community  or  else  a  restriction 
of  opportunity,  and  the  so-called  dual  system  is  dual  only  in  ad- 
ministration. It  is,  and  is  bound  to  be,  multiple  so  far  as  the  schools 
and  the  students  are  concerned. 

Now  the  public  high  school  is  a  community  proposition.  Consider 
for  a  moment  the  effect  on  such  a  high  school  when  this  cleavage  be- 
gins. The  prospective  farmers  will  go  over  to  a  farm  school.  Those 
who  are  preparing  for  the  building  trades  or  for  manufacturing  will 
move  out  into  a  separate  institution  that,  whatever  it  is,  we  will  for 
convenience  call  a  trade  school.  Those  who  are  training  for  business 
will  go  into  a  commercial  school.  Those  who  are  looking  toward  the 
scientific  professions  will  need  a  school  of  their  own.  And,  as  none 
of  these  schools  is  fitted  to  train  in  home  economics,  there  will  need 
to  be  also  a  school  for  housekeepers.  Yet  in  all  these  schools  there 
will  be  serious  trouble  in  securing  a  sufficient  amount  of  suitable  work 
outside  the  particular  vocation  for  which  the  school  is  designed. 

Here  are  five  separate  schools  drawn  from  the  original  community 
high  school,  and  who  shall  say  that  any  two  of  them  could  by  com- 
bining gain  any  advantage  which  they  might  not  have  enjoyed  had 
they  staid  where  they  were  in  the  beginning?  What  now  is  left  in 
the  high  school  after  the  exodus?  Only  those  inclined  to  the  literary 
professions,  some  girls  who  did  not  care  to  enter  a  professional  house- 
keeping school,  those  who  had  no  choice,  and  those  who  preferred  to 
dodge  the  issue  as  long  as  possible.  Fine  material,  this,  with  which 
to  conduct  the  remnant  of  the  public  school,  either  as  a  technical 
school  for  literary  purposes  or  as  a  school  for  culture,  whatever  that 
may  mean  as  a  distinct  educational  aim! 

There  is  still  another  important  consideration.  With  each  group 
of  students  thus  drawn  away  from  the  public  school  goes  a  correspond- 
ing group  of  parents  and  taxpayers  whose  interests  naturally  follow 
the  children  to  one  or  more  of  the  new  schools.  How  long  under 
such  conditions  will  these  citizens  pay  taxes  freely  for  the  public  high 
school,  which  has  then  become  a  kind  of  hybrid  between  a  cheap 


13 

technical-literary  school  and  a  pro  bono  publico  educational  luxury? 
How  long  under  conditions  such  as  these  can  the  public  high  school 
maintain  itself  in  the  average  community  or  even  in  an  exceptional 
community  that  has,  and  will  always  have,  about  all  it  can  do  to  sup- 
•port  one  good  school? 

One  of  two  things  would  happen  if  this  plan  were  ever  put  into 
actual  operation  under  public  funds.  Either  it  would  break  down  or 
it  would  reduce  the  community  high  school,  by  withdrawal  of  students 
and  support,  to  an  academy  for  the  well-to-do  in  preparation  for  the 
arts  and  science  courses  in  college. 

III.     How  WOULD  A  SEPARATE  SYSTEM  OF  VOCATIONAL 
SCHOOLS  AFEECT  SOCIETY? 

Early  cleavage  along  vocational  lines  means  inevitable  stratifica- 
tion of  society  of  the  most  uncompromising  kind  because  it  is  oc- 
cupational and  because  it  is  begun  in  childhood  and  fortified  by  edu- 
cation. Segregation  of  children  along  vocational  lines  for  the  purpose 
of  education  means  in  the  last  analysis  a  stratification  based  upon 
money  or  other  inherited  advantage  instead  of  upon  native  ability  and 
individual  initiative,  because  some  occupations  lead  naturally  to  the 
accumulation  of  wealth,  while  with  others  it  is  impossible. 

Such  a  stratification  needs  an  emperor  to  control  it.  Not  only  is 
it  incompatible  with  a  self-governing  people,  but  no  democracy  can 
endure  under  the  inevitable  strain.  Most  of  our  troubles  are  social 
and  economic,  and  to  base  our  education  upon  occupation  without 
fostering  or  even  permitting  the  closest  personal  association  is  to  sow 
among  our  children  the  seeds  of  our  most  dangerous  dissentions  and 
to  cultivate  them  day  after  day  in  the  schoolroom.  To  do  this  and 
then  to  expect  a  self-governing  people  to  live  together  afterward  in 
peace  and  harmony  is  to  sow  the  winds  without  being  ready  to  reap 
the  whirlwinds.  When  we  follow  the  lead  of  other  nations  in  this 
matter  we  must  be  prepared  to  copy  their  forms  of  government  and 
to  sacrifice  the  individual  to  a  fixed  scheme  of  general  efficiency  as 
over  against  personal  efficiency  and  culture.  Perhaps  that  is  what  we 
desire  and  what  we  need,  only  we  should  act  advisedly  when  experi- 
menting with  a  kind  of  machinery  that  works  both  ways. 

IV.     WHAT  WOULD  BE  THE  FINANCIAL  WASTE  OF  A 
MULTIPLE  SYSTEM  OF  SCHOOLS? 

Without  experience,  a  direct  answer  to  this  question  is  impossible ; 
but  technical  training  is  enormously  expensive,  and  this  fact  is  the 
chief  obstacle  to  be  overcome  in  its  widespread  introduction.  To  es- 
tablish independent  schools  along  vocational  lines  would  increase  the 
difficulty  because  of  the  repeated  and  otherwise  unnecessary  duplica- 
tion of  those  scientific,  literary,  and  other  non-technical  studies  which 


14 

ought  to  make  up  a  good  proportion  of  the  education  of  a  man  who 
is  to  be  trusted  with  the  ballot  in  a  self-governing  country. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  devise  a  more  expensive  method  of  voca- 
tional training  than  the  multiple  system  proposed.  Only  public  taxa- 
tion could  support  such  a  scheme,  and,  for  financial  reasons  if  for  no 
other,  either  it  would  break  down  or,  if  it  succeeded,  it  could  be 
maintained  only  at  the  expense  of  the  non-technical  education  of  the 
children.  It  is  this  fact  that  leads  us  to  assume  that  the  finished 
product  of  such  schools  in  actual  practice  would  be  at  best  a  superior 
kind  of  apprentice. 

Perhaps,  again,  that  is  what  we  want.  It  all  depends  upon  the 
issue, — whether  we  have  people  and  progress  or  whether  we  have  im- 
mediate industrial  efficiency  most  in  mind, — and  the  premium  we  are 
willing  to  pay  for  either. 

V.     WHAT  HAS  BEEN  THE  EXPERIENCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  AND 
MECHANICAL  COLLEGES? 

Fortunately,  we  are  not  without  experience  in  this  general  field 
and  under  thoroughly  American  conditions.  In  1862  Congress  pro- 
vided for  a  national  system  of  instruction  in  agriculture  and  the  me- 
chanic arts,  either  in  separate  colleges  or  in  connection  with  existing 
institutions  of  learning.  It  was  an  experiment  with  which  the  es- 
tablished education  of  that  day  had  little  sympathy.  In  the  middle 
of  the  last  century  all  education  was  classical,  and  the  natural  sciences 
were  not  yet  admitted  into  respectable  academic  society.  With  science 
knocking  at  closed  doors,  her  poor  relations,  agriculture  and  the 
mechanic  arts,  would  have  had  short  shrift  except  for  the  deeds  to 
•certain  real  estate  which  they  carried  in  their  pockets  and  because 
of  which  they  were  admitted,  in  certain  instances,  to  spare  room  in 
the  basements  and  the  attics,  with  the  privilege  of  gathering  such 
crumbs  as  fell  from  the  feast  of  learning. 

In  some  states  the  ' '  new  education ' '  refused  to  enter  the  existing 
institutions  upon  these  terms,  and  by  arguments  much  the  same  as 
we  now  hear,  established  colleges  of  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts  on 
a  separate,  new,  and  independent  plan.  Under  the  conditions  ob- 
taining then,  no  other  way  was  possible.  I  was  brought  up  in  such  a 
college,  and  learned  to  cast  aspersions  upon  the  old-time  classical  and 
"impractical"  form  of  education,  and  at  the  time  they  were  well 
deserved.  Those  were  days  of  narrow  views  of  the  purposes  of  edu- 
cation, days  when  it  was  held  desirable  that  the  masses  should  remain 
comparatively  ignorant  in  order  to  insure  contentment.  Then  fol- 
lowed days  of  strenuous  thinking  along  new  lines  and  no  less  strenuous 
deeds  in  educational  evolution.  All  honor  is  due  to  the  separate 
agricultural  colleges,  like  Michigan  and  Massachusetts,  that  blazed 


15 

the  trails  and  opened  the  vistas  to  a  new  view  of  learning  and  of 
service  and  of  manhood  on  the  earth  in  spite  of  the  educational  bigotry 
of  the  times. 

These  separate  agricultural  colleges  did  their  work  well, — so  well 
that  the  universities  began  to  call  the  outcasts  up  from  the  cellars 
and  down  from  the  attics  and  to  give  them  good  seats,  not  only  at 
the  feast,  but  at  the  council  board ;  and  today,  without  being  invidi- 
ous, I  am  bound  to  maintain  that  the  best  agriculture,  not  only  in 
terms  of  science  but  for  practical  farming  purposes,  and  the  best 
engineering  for  professional  use,  is  taught,  not  in  the  separate  col- 
lege as  a  half-century  ago,  but  in  the  great  state  universities  where 
the  subject  has  been  fully  accepted  and  in  which  the  technical  teachers 
are  given  every  aid  and  every  helj)  of  the  general  faculty ;  where  the 
students  who  are  to  be  farmers  Or  engineers  study  under  the  same 
conditions  and  under  the  same  instructors  as  those  who  are  to  be 
teachers,  journalists,  and  business  men;  where  the  students  come  into 
contact  with  the  whole  range  of  knowledge  and  of  human  interests, 
and  build  up  personal  friendships  among  men  of  all  professions.  Such 
a  body  of  men  is  knit  together  like  the  souls  of  David  and  Jonathan, 
and  therein  lies  the  very  heart  and  spirit  of  public  education  in  a 
democracy. 

With  this  experience  behind  us,  what  is  the  use  of  trying  out  the 
problem  again  in  the  realm  of  secondary  education?  Why  travel 
again  in  the  name  of  the  secondary  school  the  same  weary  way  it  took 
the  colleges  a  half -century  to  explore  only  to  arrive  at  a  point  just 
over  the  hill  and  not  so  very  far  after  all  from  that  of  their  own 
departure?  There  is  no  good  and  sufficient  justification  for  such  a 
procedure.  The  contest  is  over.  The  issue  is  decided.  Henceforth 
we  go  on  together. 

The  state  university  where  all  interests  work  together  is  the  model 
for  public  education  of  all  grades,  and  its  counterpart  is  the  cosmo- 
politan high  school  of  the  community,  a  thoroughly  American  institu- 
tion where  all  the  children  of  all  the  people  learn  to  do  all  the  things 
and  to  meet  all  the  duties  involved  in  a  highly  civilized  state. 

It  is  objected  that  the  public-school  teachers  are  neither  qualified 
for  nor  sympathetic  with  vocational  education.  That  they  are,  for 
the  most  part,  trained  for  other  teaching  is  true,  and  the  other  teach- 
ing is  still  to  go  on.  Additional  teachers  trained  in  the  vocations  must 
be  found,  and  very  largely  made,  whether  we  introduce  vocational 
courses  or  vocational  schools.  That  the  sympathies  of  public-school 
teachers  in  general  are  with  vocational  education  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  no  man  who  has  gone  out  from  the  University  of  Illinois  to  teach 
agriculture  in  a  high  school  has  ever  complained  of  lack  of  support 
on  the  part  of  his  colleagues.  Teachers  are  better  agreed  now  upon 
the  need  of  vocational  education  in  our  schools  than  upon  almost  any 
other  educational  subject. 


16 

Let  the  public  high  school,  therefore,  do  business.  Let  it  put  in 
vocational  courses,  night  courses,  part-time  courses,  short  courses, — 
anything  which  any  considerable  group  may  need.  Let  it  expand  to 
meet  all  the  educational  needs  of  its  community ;  and  when  the  com- 
munity has  done  all  that  it  can,  let  the  school  be  subsidized,  not  de- 
stroyed, by  the  state  and  by  the  nation,  for  the  children,  if  properly 
educated,  will  be  citizens  of  the  world  and  not  of  a  trade. 

THE  OPPOSITE  VIEW 

Nevertheless,  there  is  a  respectable  minority  that  disagrees,  some 
believing  that  we  are  not  altogether  honest  in  our  protestations ;  some 
that  the  plans  we  advocate  are  undesirable  when  applied  to  the  masses ; 
and  some  that  for  secondary  education  they  are  chimerical  and  im- 
possible however  well  they  may  work  in  college,  believing  that  what- 
ever we  may  accomplish  in  vocational  education  in  the  ordinary  pub- 
lic schools,  children  cannot  be  adequately  trained  for  industrial  life 
in  the  same  school  with  students  and  courses  devoted  at  all  seriously 
to  " academic"  instruction,  and  that  if  we  attempt  it  we  shall  come 
short  of  the  real  needs  of  a  busy  and  work-a-day  world  such  as  ours 
is  bound  to  be. 

Now,  the  wise  advocate  does  not  rest  his  case  upon  his  own  argu- 
ments. Before  he  submits  it  to  the  jury  he  carefully  examines  the 
strong  points  in  the  opposite  side  and  the  weak  spots  in  his  own. 
This  issue  is  soon  to  go  to  the  people,  who  are  the  jury.  It  will  be 
well,  therefore,  to  regard  the  case  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  pro- 
moters, at  least  so  far  as  possible,  and  afterward  to  confess  certain 
shortcomings  in  the  public  schools  not  yet  remedied  and  that  afford 
talking  points  for  the  dual  plan. 

ADVANTAGES  OF  THE  DUAL  SYSTEM 

Every  proposition  that  wins  a  following  must  have  something  to 
commend  it.  The  dual  system  is  no  exception,  and  the  following  ad- 
vantages are  conceded  without  argument: 

1.  It  provides  for  those  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  have 
"left  school," — a  hitherto  neglected  class,  many  of  whom  are  bread- 
winning  children,  and  most  of  whom  are  floating  about  from  job  to 
job,  fitted  for  nothing  in  particular. 

2.  It  extends  the  age  for  compulsory  instruction  to  eighteen  for 
all  who  are  "employed." 

3.  It  provides  a  means  by  which  youth  needing  employment  may 
combine  formal  instruction  with  shop  practice  and  some  degree  of 
earning  power. 

4.  In  providing  compulsory   training  for   "all  youth  who   are 
bound  as  apprentices,  clerks,  or  servants"  (see  Sec.  c),  it  revives  and 


17 

improves  upon  the  old  apprentice  system  of  bound  labor  in  a  way 
that  ought  to  insure  a  very  high  grade  of  service  to  the  employers. 
If  we  still  had  the  apprentice  system  with  us  this  might  all  be  re- 
garded as  a  protection  to  the  child ;  but  as  the  system  of  bound  ser- 
vice has  fallen  into  disuse  this  must  be  regarded  as  an  attempt  to 
revive  it  in  the  interest  of  a  more  reliable  source  and  more  skilful 
grade  of  child  labor, — all  of  which  is  of  undoubted  advantage  to 
"business"  and  to  "the  leisure  class."  The  writer  may  be  pardoned 
if  he  regards  this  as  a  joker  in  the  bill. 

5.  The  finished  product  would  be  more  immediately  useful  in 
business  than  is  likely  to  be  the  output  from  a  cosmopolitan  school 
whose  chief  object  is  general  as  well  as  special  efficiency  at  forty, 
rather  than  industrial  efficiency  at  sixteen  or  eighteen  years  of  age. 

6.  It  would  pay  a  more  immediate  return  on  the  investment  both 
to  business  and  to  the  craftsman. 

7.  It  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  win  support  both  with  business  in- 
terests, with  parents,  and  with  children,  because  of  its  practical  ob- 
jects and  its  early  and  direct  returns. 

8.  The  general  proposition  is  simpler  than  that  of  the  unit  system 
because  it  aims  at  meeting  the  demands  of  business  rather  than  the 
educational  needs  of  all  classes  of  children. 

9.  It  is  simpler,  too,  in  that  it  aims  to  instruct  in  a  single  method 
of  "getting  a  living"  rather  than  in  the  complicated  question  of 
"how  to  live." 

10.  The  purpose  of  a  given  school  being  simple  and  direct,  its 
administration  is  easier  than  that  of  a  school  whose  purposes  are  as 
broad  as  the  issues  of  life. 

WEAK  POINTS  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  AS  SEEN  HISTORICALLY 
AND  AS  JUDGED  BY  RESULTS 

Experience  and  growing  needs  have  brought  to  light  certain  omis- 
sions and  shortcomings  in  our  public-school  administration,  among 
which  the  following  are  most  significant: 

1.  The  public  schools  were  not  founded  for  vocational  instruction 
and  they  have  been  too  slow  in  recognizing  its  need. 

2.  They  have  attempted  to  educate  all  classes  by  means  of  studies 
and  points  of  view  drawn  from  old-time  courses  designed  for  the 
education  of  the  governing  and  other  privileged  classes  and  having 
little  reference  to  industrial  life  or  to  the  personal  needs  of  the  vast 
majority  of  people. 

3.  Not  finding  the  education  useful,   many  children  have  left 
school  and  many  have  continued  only  to  demonstrate  afterward  their 
inability  and  often  their  unwillingness  to  pursue  the  common  occupa- 
tions of  man,  showing  that  those  who  reaped  the  chief  advantage  from 
the  public  schools  were  the  fortunate  ones  who  continued  on  to  college. 


18 

In  the  opinion  of  the  writer,  the  present  proposal  is  the  best 
evidence  of  a  weak  spot  in  the  public-school  system,  for  the  new  plan 
would  have  had  no  followers  if  the  public  school  had  done  its  whole 
duty  as  it  is  now  beginning  to  do  it  in  the  form  known  as  the  unit 
system. 

SPECIAL  DIFFICULTIES  RESTING  UPON  THE  UNIT  SYSTEM 

The  unit  system  is  much  more  difficult  of  execution,  and  therefore 
of  defense,  than  is  a  separated  system,  and  for  the  following  reasons : 

1.  It  is  more  complicated,  for  it  proposes  to  undertake  the  whole 
education  of  all  the  children. 

2.  It  proposes  to  build  upon  the  present  public-school  system  be- 
cause of  its  wonderful  achievements,  but  in  doing  so  it  must  endure 
whatever  criticism  is  due  for  the  mistakes  or  shortcomings  of  the  whole 
system  during  its  long  and  tortuous  history. 

3.  Being  on  the  ground  and  at  work  carrying  the  burden  of  pub- 
lic education,  it  shares  the  common  lot  of  all  active  agencies  of  pro- 
gress in  incurring  criticism  for  whatever  difficulties  arise  in  actual 
procedure, — many  of  which  are  inherent  in  the  situation  whatever  the 
system. 

THE  Two  PLANS  COMPARED 

The  shortcomings  of  the  public  school  in  its  evolution  into  a  unit 
system  of  education  for  a  democracy  are  of  the  nature  of  details, 
mostly  of  omission,  while  the  weakness  of  the  so-called  dual  system  is 
a  fundamental  error  in  educational  ideals. 

The  mistakes,  the  errors  of  judgment  and  of  execution  in  the 
system  that  has  been  at  work,  are  growing  pains,  and,  like  children's 
diseases,  will  pass  away  and  be  left  behind,  but  the  mistake  of  the 
dual  plan  is  rooted  in  a  wrong  philosophy  of  life  and  its  results  would 
not  pass  away. 

The  two  systems  approach  vocation  and  vocational  education  from 
different  if  not  from  opposite  points  of  view.  The  one,  if  allowed  to 
proceed,  will  ripen  into  a  complete  system  of  adequate  education  for 
all  people  and  for  all  callings;  while  the  other  at  best  would  but 
provide  a  special  training  for  those  who  are  "bound"  to  service. 

THE  LESSON  OF  THE  HOUR 

The  proposition  to  establish  a  new  system  of  schools  proposes  noth- 
ing that  cannot  be  as  well  or  better  done  by  existing  schools,  but  it 
does  point  out  certain  imperative  lines  of  procedure: 

1.  We  must  find  ways  of  teaching  the  vocations  which  will  not 
only  train  for  service  but  also  educate  the  individual  as  much  as  pos- 
sible and  develop  the  occupation  as  well, — a  vastly  more  difficult  un- 
dertaking than  simply  training  for  employment. 


19 

2.  We  must  learn  to  teach  the  same  subject  in  different  ways  to 
different  groups  of  students ;  for  to  the  literary  student,  for  example, 
language  and  literature  are  technical  subjects,  while  to  all  others  they 
are  semi-technical  or  entirely  non-technical. 

3.  Public  schools  generally  must  introduce  vocational  courses  par- 
alleling the  non-technical  instruction  and  do  it  honestly  in  ways  that 
will  really  train  for  efficiency  in  occupational  service. 

4.  More  schools  must  follow  the  lead  of  the  few  in  introducing 
short  courses,  night  schools,  and  the  kind  of  education  needed  by  every 
other  class  contemplated  in  the  Cooley  bill  except  the  "bound  out" 
class,  which  is  unAmerican. 

Unless  the  public  schools  will  do  all  this,  some  such  scheme  as  the 
Cooley  bill  is  inevitable,  because  it  will  be  necessary. 

We  must  all  admit  that  the  present  point  of  view  at  which  most 
public-school  teachers  have  now  arrived  is  comparatively  recent  and 
quite  opposite  to  that  commonly  held  even  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago.  We  must  also  admit  that  we  are  only  beginning  to  put  these  new 
ideas  into  operation,  and  that,  relatively,  the  work  goes  slowly  from 
lack  of  funds  and  qualified  teachers,  even  though,  absolutely,  it  is 
going  by  leaps  and  bounds.  We  must  freely  admit  that  much  of  the 
finished  product  of  the  public  schools, — largely  turned  out  under  old 
conditions, — is  far  from  satisfactory  in  real  life,  a  fact  that  has  been 
better  appreciated  by  the  business  world,  which  receives  the  students, 
than  by  teachers,  who  are  always  engaged  upon  a  new  crop  and  see 
but  little  of  the  final  fruits  of  their  own  labors,  and  whose  judgment 
rests  mainly  upon  the  rather  artificial  standards  of  the  schools,  not 
drawn  from  the  experience  of  the  world  outside,  but  erected  within 
as  a  kind  of  algebraic  sum  of  convenience  in  teaching  and  ease  in 
administration. 

We  must  all  understand  that  in  general  the  world  demands  effi- 
ciency as  the  income  from  expensive  public  instruction,  while  com- 
monly the  parent,  and  too  often  the  teacher,  regards  the  school  as 
somehow  a  means  of  giving  the  individual  some  sort  of  advantage 
whereby  he  may  be  freed  from  the  hard  conditions  that  of  necessity 
beset  the  common  mass  of  humanity.  This  ambition  of  the  parent 
or  the  teacher  easily  communicates  itself  to  the  child,  who  goes  job- 
hunting  from  school  with  the  wrong  attitude  towards  work  and  to- 
wards the  world,  which  demands  service  and  which  is  unwilling  to 
accord  favors  unearned  but  is  more  likely  to  demand  a  handicap. 

That  we  are  caught  in  the  midst  of  our  own  reformation  we  must 
admit,  but  we  insist  that  no  procedure  is  or  can  be  100  percent  per- 
fect, as  advocates  of  the  new-old  plan  would  speedily  find  were  it  put 
into  practice,  and  we  insist  that  .the  public  has  been,  and  is,  more 
blameworthy  than  the  schools  for  any  past  delinquency  in  our  prod- 
ucts. Until  the  individual  parent  is  not  only  willing  but  insistent  that 


20 

his  own  boy  and  Ms  own  girl  shall  be  educated  for  usefulness  and 
not  for  parasitism,  and  until  he  is  willing  to  pay  for  such  education, 
the  public  schools  cannot  do  their  whole  duty  by  the  children  or  by 
the  world  they  are  to  serve,  whatever  the  form  of  organization.  Our 
whole  contention  is  this:  Just  because  the  world  went  to  sleep  and 
had  bad  dreams,  it  must  not,  upon  awaking,  proceed  to  smash  every- 
thing that  has  been  done  during  its  long  somnolence. 

PROPOSITIONS  FOR  AGREEMENT 

In  a  discussion  involving  action  and  far-reaching  consequences  it 
is  well  not  only  to  know  the  ground  thoroughly,  but  to  ascertain 
clearly  the  points  on  which  agreement  may  be  reached.  To  this  end 
the  following  propositions  involving  concessions  from  both  sides  are 
submitted  for  agreement: 

I.  Without  vocational  education  of  the  masses,  the  following  con- 
sequences are  inevitable: 

1.  Each  new  generation  assumes  the  burdens  of  the  last 
without  sufficient  preparation ;   for  general  knowledge  is  not 
necessarily  specific  power. 

2.  The  ordinary  individual  is  unable  to  care  for  himself 
and  his  family  as  self-respecting  members  of  society;    for 
he  is  not  prepared  to  engage  successfully  in  the  activities 
whereby  we  live. 

3.  The  major  industries,  like  farming  and  manufacturing, 
do  not  develop ;    for  their  further  progress  is  conditioned 
upon  the  findings  of  science  and  the  practice  of  educated 
men. 

4.  Society  is  not  well  served  if  its  fundamental  needs  are 
inadequately  or  irregularly  met ;   for  all  necessities,  like  the 
food  supply,  should  be  not  only  ample  and  economical  but  at 
all  times  certain. 

5.  The  highest  civilization  does  not  develop  ;   for  further 
advance  rests  upon  the  proper  development  of  those  indus- 
tries concerned  with  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  that  inevitably 
absorb  the  most  of  the  time,  thought,  and  energy  of  man. 

6.  The  ultimate  result  is  the  development  of  a  great  mid- 
dle class  existing  precariously  by  grinding  toil,  a  submerged 
and  parasitic  minority  living  hopelessly  by  its  wits,  and  a 
small  leisure  class  also  largely  parasitic, — a  stratification  re- 
sulting from  the  possession  of  money  or  other  inherited  ad- 
vantage rather  than  from  education  and  personal  initiative ; 
for  the  only  agency  of  real  progress  is  educated  individual 
efficiency. 

7.  A  society  so  stratified  is  undemocratic  and  must  be 
governed  from  without,  for  its  elements  are  too  diverse,  its 
interests  too  antagonistic,  and  its  objects  too  ill-defined  to 
permit  of  government  by  the  vote  of  the  majority. 


21 

II.  Any  general  system  of  vocational  education,  however  admin- 
istered, must,  to  be  both  effective  and  safe,  recognize  and  foster  the 
following  principles : 

1.  Vocational  education  in  order  to  be  useful  must  be 
really  technical  in  subject  matter  and  in  spirit;   for  its  ob- 
ject is  to  enable  the  Individual  to  take  a  useful  place  in 
society  with  reasonable  promptness,  efficiency,  and  certainty. 

2.  It  must  be  accompanied  by  not  less  than  an  equal 
amount  of  strictly  non-technical  instruction,  the  aim  of  which 
is  to  draw  attention  outside  the  man  and  his  calling  to  the 
world  in  general  and  to  the  larger  things  of  life ;   for  society 
must  be  something  more  than  an  aggregation  of  technicians. 

3.  The  ultimate  object  of  all  education  is  not  industrial 
efficiency  but  the  full  development  of  man;    for  vocation  is 
a  means  of  living  and  not  the  purpose  of  existence. 

4.  The  fullest  understanding  and  the  closest  cooperation 
is  necessary  between  the  forces  and  agencies  aiming  at  the 
vocational  education  and  those  aiming  at  the  non-technical 
development  of  the  child;   for  without  this  cooperation,  one 
phase  or  the  other  of  the  personality  will  remain  undevel- 
oped, and  the  man  be  likely  to  become  a  burden  upon  the 
community  if  not  a  menace  to  society. 

5.  Under  this  cooperation,  vocational  education  as  such 
must  not  only  proceed  along  lines  necessary  to  its  own  pur- 
poses, but  it  must  be  allowed  to  inject  into  the  school  system 
many  processes  that  are  new  and  many  standards  that  have 
not  been  heretofore  recognized  in  education ;   for  it  assumes 
the  principle  that  there  is  no  general  education  that  will 
really  prepare  for  specific  service. 

6.  The  curriculum  of  the  school  is  quite  a  different  matter 
from  the  course  of  study  best  for  the  particular  student; 
for  the  one  is  as  broad  as  the  needs  of  life  and  the  capacities 
of  the  school  as  a  whole,  while  the  other  is  fitted  to  the  needs, 
capacities,  and  desires  of  an  individual. 

7.  Historically  all  education  is  technical  and  vocational, 
but  we  are  now  entering  upon  a  period  in  which  any  subject, 
as  chemistry,  literature,  or  agriculture,  may  be  vocational 
and  therefore  technical  to  one  group  but  non-technical  to 
other  groups ;  for  the  influence  and  value  of  a  subject  is  due 
not  only  to  its  content  but  to  the  manner  in  which  it  is  pre- 
sented by  the  teacher  and  the  spirit  and  purpose  with  which 
it  is  pursued  by  the  student. 

8.  In  this  way  most  subjects  may  be  at  one  time  and  for 
one  purpose  vocational,  and  at  another  time  and  for  another 
purpose  non-technical.     This  means  that  teachers  must  be 
able  and  willing  from  now  on  to  teach  certain  subjects,  es- 
pecially language,  literature,  and  the  sciences,  somewhat  dif- 
ferently to  different  groups  of  students,  and  the  student  must 
be  always  conscious  whether  he  is  taking  a  given  course  for 
technical,  semi-technical,  or  strictly  non-technical  purpose. 


22 

9.  Between  subjects  necessary  to  the  education  of  the 
various  groups,  no  lines  of  academic  superiority  or  inferi- 
ority should  be  established ;   for  who  shall  say  whether  food 
or  water  subserves  the  higher  purpose? 

10.  Educational  readjustments  with  a  view  to  vocation  are 
inevitable.    In  this  process  certain  old-time  and  intrenched 
subjects  will  seemingly  be  demoted  because  not  universally 
required,  but  actually  every  subject  is  to  be  preserved  and 
made  more  useful  because  taught  with  greater  discrimination 
as  to  its  purpose ,   for  we  cannot  as  a  whole  afford  to  lose  a 
single  item  of  knowledge  any  more  than  can  the  individual 
afford  to  study  everything. 

11.  This  is  all  to  cost  more  money  than  ever  before,  not 
only  in  the  aggregate  but  in  the  per-capita  expense;    for 
technical  education  is  more  costly  than  non-technical.     We 
shall  need  to  husband  our  resources,  and  all  waste  from  un- 
necessary duplication  should  be  devoted  to  the  enrichment 
of  learning. 

12.  The  ultimate  purposes  of  civilization  are  to  be  at- 
tained   through    personal    efficiency    and    culture    and    not 
through  the  complete  subordination  of  the  individual  to  so- 
ciety, which,  as  such,  has  no  entity;    for  society  is  nothing 
but  the  people  who  compose  it,  and  its  superior  claims  are 
nothing  but  the  highest  good  of  the  greatest  number.    Upon 
no  other  philosophy  of  life  can  democratic  institutions  en- 
dure or  civilization  stand  under  universal  suffrage. 

WHERE  WE  DIFFER 

While  the  foregoing  propositions  do  not  cover  the  situation,  they 
fairly  surround  it  and  broadly  outline  it.  If  we  can  agree  on  them, — 
and  how  can  we  differ  much? — then  the  only  questions  on  which  we 
can  possibly  differ  are  these  three : 

1.  Do  we  need  a  new  and  separate  system  of  vocational  schools'? 

2.  Can  we  afford  such  a  system,  financially? 

3.  Dare  we  establish  such  a  system  in  America? 


23 


AN  EDUCATIONAL  CREED 

I.  I  believe  in  the  individual:    in  the  child  as  father  to 
the  man,  who  is  the  agent  of  all  progress. 

II.  I  believe  that  society  has  a  right  to  demand  of  every 
normal  man,  whatever  his  wealth,  that  he  shall  do  something 
useful,  and  that  instruction  in  that  duty  is  one  of  the  rights 
and  obligations  of  the  public  school. 

III.  I  believe  also  that  every  man  has  his  own  life  to  live 
and  personality  to  develop,  and  that  he  has  a  right  to  in- 
struction in  things  that  are  his  own. 

IV.  I  believe  that  no  society  can  permanently  govern  it- 
self unless  men  are  firmly  knit  together  by  a  common  stock 
of  universal  knowledge  and  of  sympathy  with  each  other's 
burdens. 

V.  I  believe  that  the  highest  civilization  is  possible  only 
as  each  man  develops  within  himself  the  best  service  and  the 
highest  ideals  of  which  he  is  capable  and  is  both  free  and 
willing  to  exercise  all  his  faculties. 

VI.  I  believe  that  the  public  school,  which  has  possession 
of  all  the  children,  is  the  controlling  agent  of  progress,  and 
that  its  policies  both  reflect  and  establish  the  ideals  of  our 
times  and  the  limits  of  our  attainments. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

THE   STATE   UNIVERSITY 

Urbana 
EDMUND  J.  JAMES,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D.,  President 


THE  UNIVERSITY  INCLUDES  THE  FOLLOWING  DEPARTMENTS: 

The  Graduate  School 

The  College  of  Liberal  Arts  and  Sciences  (Ancient  and  Modern 
Languages  and  Literatures ;  History,  Economics  and  Account- 
ancy, Political  Science,  Sociology;  Philosophy,  Psychology, 
Education;  Mathematics;  Astronomy;  Geology;  Physics; 
Chemistry;  Botany,  Zoology,  Entomology;  Physiology;  Art 
and  Design ;  Ceramics) 

The  College  of  Engineering  (Architecture;  Architectural,  Civil, 
Electrical,  Mechanical,  Mining,  Municipal  and  Sanitary,  and 
Railway  Engineering) 

The  College  of  Agriculture  (Agronomy ;  Animal  Husbandry ;  Dairy 
Husbandry ;  Horticulture  and  Landscape  Gardening ;  Veteri- 
nary Science;  Agricultural  Extension;  Teachers'  Course; 
Household  Science) 

The  College  of  Law  (three  years'  course) 

The  School  of  Education 

The  Courses  in  Business  (General  Business;  Banking;  Account- 
ancy ;  Railway  Administration ;  Insurance ;  Secretarial ;  Com- 
mercial Teachers 

The  Course  in  Journalism 

The  Courses  in  Chemistry  and  Chemical  Engineering 

The  Courses  in  Ceramics  and  Ceramic  Engineering 

The  School  of  Railway  Engineering  and  Administration 

The  School  of  Music  (four  years'  course) 

The  School  of  Library  Science  (two  years'  course) 

The  College  of  Medicine  (in  Chicago) 

The  College  of  Dentistry  (in  Chicago) 

The  School  of  Pharmacy  (in  Chicago ;  Ph.  G.  and  Ph.  C.  courses) 

The  Summer  Session  (eight  weeks) 

Experiment  Stations :  IT.  S.  Agricultural  Experiment  Station ;  En- 
gineering Experiment  Station;  State  Laboratory  of  Natural 
History;  State  Entomologist's  Office ;  Biological  Experiment 
Station  on  Illinois  River ;  State  Water  Survey ;  State  Geologi- 
cal Survey;  Mine  Rescue  Station 

The  library  collections  contain  (October  1,  1914)  328,000  volumes, 
including  the  library  of  the  State  Laboratory  of  Natural  His- 
tory (8,100  volumes),  the  Quine  Medical  Library  (14,000  vol- 
umes), and  the  library  of  the  School  of  Pharmacy  (2,000  vol- 
umes). 

For  catalogs  and  information  address 

THE  REGISTRAR 

Urbana,  Illinois 


